


No Return

by Sproid



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-30
Updated: 2013-03-30
Packaged: 2017-12-06 23:46:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/741583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sproid/pseuds/Sproid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inferno!verse AU. A look at how our Benton and Brigadier might have ended up as their evil counterparts, and at their relationship in this alternative reality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Return

No-one cares about schooling for poor kids any more. At the age of sixteen, John Benton scrapes passes in the bare minimum of O-Levels, and has two choices available to him upon leaving the education system. Having seen what the factories did to his dad five years back, he opts to join the army.

His mum objects, says he doesn't know what he's getting into, that he's got no idea what he'll have to do as a member of the armed forces. Being in the military isn't the same as it used to be during the Great Wars, she tells him. Benton replies that of course it won't be; nowadays the British government barely care about their own people, never mind a load of foreigners, and in any case have far more pressing things to worry about that going to war.

That, his mother tells him, is the problem. She doesn't stop him signing up though. They both know that she needs the extra income of the pay-cheque he promises to send home, if she's to keep the house and feed the mouths of the hungry siblings he's leaving behind.

\-- -- -- -- --

It's a foregone conclusion that Alistair will go into the army when he's finished his A-Levels. Granted, it's not the army his uncle spoke of when Alistair was younger; he won't so much be serving queen and country as the men who took her from the throne, but he's sure that'll change soon. There will be another election in five years, after all. In any case, Alistair knows better than to go against his father's wishes.

Despite scepticism, the election happens on schedule, but comes with poll taxes and scare tactics and a worn-down nation that re-elect the current government for want of a better choice. Within the year, they execute the royals, abolish future elections, and announce the new Republic of Great Britain.

Alistair has the choice to swear loyalty to the new regime, and help uphold it, or become one of its first victims. Platoon Leader Lethbridge-Stewart is, as ever, loyal to his country. Alistair's opinions on those who run it are hardly relevant, and he'd rather work do his best to preserve things on the inside than join the poor devils who fill the prisons up more by the day.

\-- -- -- -- -- --

Scrawny at sixteen, slim at seventeen, and sturdy by eighteen, Benton finds that the army does for him what years of thin gruel and one-sided rough and tumble in the playground never could.

They put him to work in prisoner transport, crowd control, anything for which his size puts him in good stead. He catches on quickly that the more he demonstrates his ability to use his strength as well as his brain, the more praise – and consequently extra food and less shouting at – he receives. It isn't what he thought he'd be doing, shoving members of the public around when they don’t do as they’re told. A bit of tough treatment doesn’t do anyone too much harm though, and is nothing compared to what’ll happen to him if he doesn’t get on with it.

By the time he makes Sergeant three years in, he's well past six foot two, still growing, and has the muscle to go with it. The other lads have started to look up to him, and he gets the attention of his CO as well, who recommends him for reassignment to the RSF shortly afterwards.

When he visits home the day before he leaves, his mum has to tilt her head back to look at him. He knows she's been eating more since he's been sending home money, but even so he's careful when he hugs her, just in case.

“You've grown up,” she says when he lets her go.

For some reason, she looks sad as she casts her eyes over him. Benton doesn't ask why. At nineteen, he knows better than to ask the questions whose answers he won't like.

\-- -- -- -- --

Resources and men are scarce these days; Alistair gains a reputation for being able to stretch their limited forces without compromising security, no matter what task he's assigned. He rises through the ranks rapidly, his intelligence and perseverance put to far better use as an officer than they ever were as a schoolboy. Meanwhile his hopes for a better government end up dusty and faded in a corner of his mind that he's nowhere fool enough to admit to having.

As a Colonel he's put in charge of defence of Downing Street, which remains the target of repeatedly desperate attacks from rebel groups who just don't know when to give up. The summer of 1968 is particularly unrestful; barely a week goes by without an attempt on the life of the leader or his associates. Under Alistair's command they're all thwarted, without losing the lives of soldiers who are far less easily replaced than the never-ending rabble they're defending against, and he has the honour of meeting the leader in person to receive a medal for his excellent service.

His stint at head of Downing Street security comes to an end following a particularly well-organised attack that takes them all by surprise. It's a blur of floodlit pavements and a wall of riot shields, the sound of his own hoarse shouts over gunfire and the sharp clash of knives against body armour, the tight crush of people who are doing their best to break through the defences and look like they might just succeed.

They don't, of course, but Alistair wakes up in hospital the next morning with the entire left side of his face on fire and only half the room visible to him. The nurses tell him that he'll never see out of the eye again, and Alistair shuts the other against the harsh reality that is the end of his career.

Major General Rutlidge comes to visit him the next week. Expecting news of an honourable discharge, Alistair is instead presented with a series of documents to sign, and then provided with information about a government project he'd thought was rumour only.

After discovering that the energy crisis is far more serious than is being made known, and that the efforts being put in to avert it are being thwarted by a lack of firm leadership and an excess of rebellious scientists, Alistair accepts the assignment to Brigade Leader of the Republican Security Forces without hesitation. He might not be able to serve his country on the front-lines any more, but he can damn well do his best to supervise and control the efforts to stop it plunging into chaos.

\-- -- -- -- --

Even after being in the Army for three years, the RSF teaches Benton more than he thought he had left to know.

He learns that increased pay and a new uniform come with more responsibilities and less leniency, and that if you don't live up to expectations, you'd better be prepared to spend the next week making up for it. The scientists who work there aren't volunteers and aren't paid, and they'll escape if they're desperate enough or if you give them a chance. If you're the one they get away from, you'd better be prepared to catch them, and be part of the firing squad who deals with them on the Brigade Leader's order.

The first time Benton's part of a firing squad, he spends the following hour throwing up in the toilet when he should be on watch. He finds out that the lads will cover for you once, and buy you a drink afterwards, but that's the extent of their sympathies. After that, you'd better be tough enough to stick it out. Benton learns to feign indifference and do algebra in his head so that he can't hear the pleas of the half-starved scientist against the wall in front of him. He learns to do it so well that he can report to the Brigade Leader afterwards, with neither hands nor voice shaking.

He learns that if you look at one of the lads the wrong way, they'll square up until you defuse the situation, and that looking at them in too much the right way is liable to earn you a punch in the face. It's a good idea to have a girlfriend back home, and you'd better be bloody sure that the bloke offering to blow you in the alley behind the pub isn't going to have you arrested the moment you say 'yes'.

He learns that no matter how bad it gets outside, how many riots there are when half the country has no power and the other half no food, those within the employ of the RSF will always eat well and sleep within protected walls. If you're especially in favour, the armed forces stay away from the house in which your family lives when there are raids going on. To be especially in favour, you'd better be ready to do whatever those in charge ask of you, without question and without hesitation.

Now Benton understands in detail what his mother knew only from rumour. He still sends home the extra from his pay-cheque, but doesn't visit in person any more.

\-- -- -- -- --

The first time Alistair meets Benton, he doesn't pay him much attention. The man comes highly recommended, but that's to be expected from anyone transferring into the RSF. He's a big chap, looks a bit too open and honest to be here but that probably won't last long. Alistair signs the paperwork to accept him, and sends him off without much more of a thought.

It's only after a few months that he starts paying attention, when reports of Benton's efficiency and quiet competence reach him. When he starts watching, he sees that Benton's got a brain to go with his brawn, and has already got hold of the lessons which take many officers years to get the hang of. Too much violence loses its effectiveness too soon, and makes for a work-force that's nearer to dead than alive. Benton's got the knack both of threatening convincingly, and carrying through quick and brutal when he needs to be, getting his point across with an efficiency that's a rare pleasure to see.

Rough around the edges initially, clinging to the last vestiges of innocence that a few of the young have somehow managed to keep hold of, he nevertheless responds well when Alistair places him under the command of a few of the seasoned Platoon Leaders who know how things work. When the time for promotions comes around, Alistair recommends Benton without second thought, and waits to see what he'll bring to the running of the base.

\-- -- -- -- --

As Platoon Under Leader, Benton reports to both Section Leader Shaw and the Brigade Leader on a regular basis. The Section Leader is a decent enough sort if you stay on her good side, but she'll have your guts for garters – or put you on waste removal duty for a week – if you mess something up. Benton doesn't mess up, and in return she doesn't take his head off when he asks the occasional question about what's going on in the various labs she's in charge of, even when they're stupid ones that Benton should know the answers to if he'd actually paid attention to Chemistry.

The Brigade Leader is an entirely different matter. Despite the fact that it was he who recommended Benton for promotion, he looks none-too-pleased to see Benton for the daily reports. For the first month, Benton either gets shouted at every time he turns up, or is dealt gruff responses followed by a curt dismissal.

It doesn't make sense, until Benton learns that the last man in this position had been Platoon Leader Yates, and everyone knows what happened to him. The punishment for soldiers working for other political groups is even more severe than that for scientists caught doing the same.

It takes a while to earn even a small measure of his trust, but Benton's in no rush. Eventually the Brigade Leader begins to share with him some of the inner workings of the base, give him a few more sensitive tasks to do, and while he always looks stressed when Benton sees him, the impatience isn't directed at him so much any more.

The gossip on base is that the tension between Section Leader Shaw and the Brigade Leader is entirely sexual, and it's only a matter of time before they hook up, the only reason they haven't already being that they're both too contrary to be the first to admit anything. There's bets on how long it'll take them, and how long after that it'll be before the Brigade Leader's wife finds out.

Benton doesn't participate. He's always been good at reading people, and he forms his own opinion on what's going on pretty quickly. Section Leader Shaw is far more interested in her job and how to do it best than she is in the Brigade Leader, who in turn has no more interest in her than he does for any of the women on base. If he has a wife - which his ring says he does - the marriage is in name only.

At first, Benton wonders why he hides it, when a man of his power – in control of pay, benefits, assignments – could have anyone on the base he wanted, and blackmail or bribe them into keeping quiet. Then he realises that as true as that is, it would only one man to blow the whistle and the Brigade Leader would be done for. Benton has got to know him well enough to be sure that he's far too dedicated to his job to risk that happening.

\-- -- -- -- --

Benton has a habit of being uncowed by Alistair's shouting, which initially annoys Alistair until he realises that Benton is still heeding the words, and he realises that he can mete them out at a level that doesn't damage both of their ears. It surprises him that Benton can do his job as well as if he's been in the position for years, even though he doesn't look tough enough to handle half of what he's required to do, but without fail Benton comes through cleanly and competently.

Apart from his other qualities, at half a head taller than Alistair, Benton fills out his uniform with muscle and long limbs that Alistair wants to see stretched out beneath him, entirely at his mercy. He wants to hear Benton gasp his name as respectfully as he uses his title, wants to snap orders at him and find out if he's as quick to follow them in bed as he is in the office, push his limits and see what it takes to make him lose the calmness that seems to follow him around.

Benton notices the interest – he's got a good sense for that sort of thing now – but waits before he does anything about it, just to confirm that it's not just his attraction to the man making him see things that aren't there. When he's sure, he has to wait longer, because propositioning the Brigade Leader in his office probably isn't the best way to go about things.

His chance comes when they're ordered to oversee the final stages of something a wealthy, independent scientist is working on in the laboratory of his stately home. They end up bunking two to a room while they're there, Benton paired with Alistair as second in command for the duration. The twin beds don't look too comfy, but the room offers them the privacy that Benton's been waiting for.

When Benton lays his jacket on the chair at the edge of the bed, the scratch of Alistair's pen slows, then stops completely when Benton starts on the buttons of his shirt. Benton doesn't look up but he knows Alistair is watching. He has it confirmed when he pulls off both his shirt and the vest beneath, and Alistair finally speaks with a demanding edge to his voice that sends shivers down his spine.

“What the devil do you think you're doing, Benton?”

Hands pausing over his zip, Benton raises his head. His heart thumps when he meets the gaze that's intent on him, and again at the way Alistair licks his lips when Benton undoes his trousers and pushes them down.

“Undressing, sir,” Benton replies.

The room is plunged into darkness as Alistair flicks off the desk lamp. Two thumps of his boots mark his strides across the floor, and then Benton finds his wrists gripped tight enough to bruise while his mouth is taken in a hard kiss that doesn't last nearly long enough.

“Well bloody hurry up then,” Alistair rasps out roughly, and lets go so that Benton can finish undressing with shaking hands.

Benton doesn't expect the urgency which follows; hardly has Alistair got his own clothes off than he's pushing Benton back onto the bed, pressing him into it with his weight while his mouth covers Benton's once more. He's rubbing against Benton with a fervour that doesn't make sense until Benton processes the way that Alistair is still holding onto his wrists, stretching his arms above his head and holding them there as if he thinks Benton is going somewhere.

“You don't have to hold on to me,” Benton gets out when Alistair lets up for air. Alistair stills; Benton stretches his fingers up, finds the metal bars of the headboard, and hooks his fingertips around them as best he can. “I'm not going anywhere.”

He wishes he could see Alistair's face, better judge what reassurance to give, but as it is all he can do is do his best to relax into Alistair's hold despite the nerves and anticipation which make every muscle want to tense. After a moment, Alistair's fingers loosen, linger as Benton shifts to wrap his hands more securely around the bars, and then lift slowly while Benton stays entirely still.

Alistair shifts slightly down Benton's body, and Benton doesn't move even though his cock is now pressed against Alistair's stomach, and his heart is thumping because he has no idea what's going on at the moment. The half-breath that escapes Alistair sounds like relief, and then his hands come to rest on Benton's chest, rough fingertips rubbing over Benton's nipples while teeth nip sharply below Benton's jaw.

“You've done this before,” Alistair says when Benton tilts his head back to give him better access, shivering but slowly relaxing.

Benton lets out a brief laugh. Whatever the few fumbles he's had so far count as, it's nothing at all like this. “Not with anyone who knows what they're doing.”

He doesn't so much hear as feel the satisfied sound that his response elicits, rumbling low from Alistair's chest as his fingers dig into Benton's sides. “Oh, I definitely know what I'm doing,” Alistair tells him, low and dark and promising. “Don't you dare make a sound,” he warns, and Benton nods furiously, then bites his lip as the teeth return to bite down hard on his collarbone.

After that he doesn't have time to be nervous at all, because Alistair isn't gentle with him but Benton doesn't want him to be, swept up in the rough handling that brings heat to his skin and the confidence to Alistair's touch that doesn't give him any option but to relax into it. It's hard and fast, Alistair entirely in control of Benton but less so of himself, rubbing himself off against Benton's thigh and coming with a grunt that he muffles in Benton's shoulder. 

Benton thinks the fact that he's allowed to come afterwards, jerked efficiently to release while Alistair's tongue explores his mouth, is probably his reward for not moving despite being painfully hard against the stomach of the man who is sprawled over him. It's likely the only thanks he'll get for being the one to indicate that Alistair's attentions would not be unwelcome, too, but Benton can live with that.

The following week, Benton gets a new room assignment, tucked away in one of the unwelcoming corners of the base where hardly anyone goes. The lads ask Benton what he's done wrong to deserve that; Benton shrugs and tells them he doesn't know, while the truth is that it's proof he's done something right. And the more time he spends in there with Alistair, lights out and clothes off, the more he learns how to carry on doing things right, or at least right enough that Alistair looks less lonely, and Benton is satisfied in ways he didn't know he needed.

\-- -- -- -- --

No-one suspects anything – they'd both be out of a job if anyone did – but Benton comes to be known as one of the people less likely to get shouted at for disturbing the Brigade Leader. Consequently he gets the job of delivering afternoon coffee, which earns him a few chocolate biscuits during tea-break from the Corporal he relieves of the duty, and a chance to check in on Alistair during the day with no-one asking why he's there.

As he heads to the office with the mid-afternoon coffee, Benton meets Shaw coming the other way, her expression even more annoyed than it usually is after her meetings with the Leader.

“If you were anyone else, I’d warn you not to go in there,” she tells him wryly.

“Having a bad day, is he?”

“Think 'bear' and 'sore head'. There’s been some sort of mess-up in the experimental block which he’s spent all day sorting out. Now the head office is demanding that he file the paperwork before the end of the week.”

Benton winces. If Alistair has spent half the day doing paperwork, no wonder he’s in a foul mood. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any painkillers on you?”

“Good luck getting him to take them,” Shaw says, but puts them on the tray for him anyway.

When Benton knocks, the response is a barked, “Who is it?” that’s probably scared half the office away today already.

“Coffee,” Benton calls in reply, and enters at the slightly less annoyed instruction to come in.

As Shaw had said, the desk is covered in papers, at which Alistair is looking with his hand cupped around his eye to shield it from the sun coming in through the window. The strain is evident in the lines across his forehead and the tension in his shoulders, understandable given that he’s probably been focussing on the tiny print in front of him all afternoon.

After putting both painkillers and coffee within easy reach, Benton turns away to draw one curtain across to block out at least some of the glare from outside. He takes long enough to do it that Alistair can swallow the painkillers while he’s not looking.

“Thank you,” Alistair says gruffly, which is Benton’s cue to come back and pour more coffee.

“Anything else I can do?” Benton asks.

Glaring, Alistair tells him, “Not even you can get rid of headaches that are caused by only having one eye.”

Benton shrugs. “I can try.”

“I suppose you can’t do any harm,” Alistair concedes grudgingly. “And what, pray, is your fantastic solution?”

Alistair looks sceptical at the suggestion of the neck-rub that Benton offers, and complains in no uncertain terms up until the point that his muscles start to loosen beneath Benton’s hands and his head is nodding forwards. Benton carries on until Alistair is slumped over his desk and breathing slowly, then leaves the room as quietly as possible and tells Corporal Bell that the Brigade Leader is not to be disturbed for anything other than emergencies.

Half an hour later, Alistair wakes up confused and disoriented until he works out why he’s asleep on his desk, and then he curses Benton as he resumes the paperwork that he should never have taken a break from.

When a furious Alistair turns up in Benton’s room that evening, Benton is far from surprised. Slamming the door shut behind him, Alistair strides across the room and grips Benton’s collar, half lifting him out of the chair as he leans over him and growls, “If you ever do that to me again, I’ll dock your pay for a week.”

Glad he’d loosened his collar before he’d sat down to read, Benton gets out, “Yessir!” and manages a nod. Alistair lets him go, and Benton just about manages not to hit the chair too hard when he comes back down.

“How’s your headache?” Benton asks innocently, which earns him a glare followed by Alistair grabbing him again, only this time it’s to haul him up, order him to strip and shove him on the bed the second he’s naked. There he answers by tying Benton's hands to the headboard, discarding his own uniform even though the lights are still on, and drawing things out until Benton is breathless and shaking beneath him. For once Alistair lets him come first, hands lingering on his body afterwards, and he kisses Benton slow and deep so that neither of them have to speak.

\-- -- -- -- --

Benton isn't loyal to a regime, Alistair knows. He hasn't been alive long enough to know that there used to be a better way of doing things, or if he is then it can only be in the fairy-tales passed on from grandparents whose lives are all but over. No, Benton is loyal to people, those he likes and those he respects, and possibly those he trusts if he's still innocent enough to believe that such people exist.

It should bother Alistair, Benton's indifference to the larger picture, but he's seen what happens to men who think too much about the politics of it all and are drawn in by groups who oppose the status quo. As long as Benton is true to him, he'll never stray, and Alistair won't have to deal with the betrayal.

\-- -- -- -- --

At the end of a long week, with everything done but just barely, they trudge to Benton's room and lock the door against the stresses of the outside world. Lights out comes just as they finish undressing, leaving them surrounded by the dark and the last few rustles as they put the last items of clothes on the chair.

With his depth perception shot to hell, Alistair can make out Benton's outline against the faint light from the window, but doesn't realise how close he is until Benton's hand curves around the uninjured side of his face.

“Does it hurt?” Benton asks quietly.

Thrown, Alistair can only manage a shake of his head in response. Benton's palm stays with him, big and warm and gentle, while Alistair stands stock-still in the flow that's altering around him. After a moment, he replies shortly, “Not any more.”

There's silence, and then the remaining light is blocked out, Alistair's only warning before Benton's lips brush softly against the scar. The soft touch is nothing against nerve-damaged tissue that healed over years ago, but Alistair's breath catches anyway.

Mentally cursing the show of weakness, he reaches out for Benton's wrists, intending to draw his hands away only to find that they're no longer there. Instead they slide over his shoulders and down his chest to curve around his ribs, which expand as Alistair draws in a sharp breath. He's about to ask what Benton's doing, but then he feels warm air against his stomach as Benton sinks to his knees, hands raising shivers as they slide down Alistair's sides before they fall away.

Then Alistair can feel nothing apart from the soft press of Benton's mouth to his thigh, and the brush of hair as Benton tilts his head forwards and waits, giving Alistair back the control which he'd taken so easily. Pretending that his hands aren't shaking, Alistair slides his fingers into Benton's hair and tightens his grip until a pained sound escapes Benton's throat.

“Get on with it then,” Alistair instructs, and breathes out as Benton licks up the length of his hardening cock, eager and willing and restoring the balance once more.

\-- -- -- -- --

This isn't love, Benton doesn’t think. Not that he’s ever been in love, but he’s fairly sure it should be soft and gentle, if anyone had time for it any more. This is rough and hard and furtive, keeping more secrets than they share, coming together under cover of darkness and only when everything else has been taken care of. That doesn’t mean it’s not important, but he’s not naive enough to think it’s love.

It’s not love, Alistair knows. He’s been in love before, young and foolish and unaware of the dangers of reality, and it certainly didn’t feel like this. He remembers being at ease and in charge, even when he had to hide from everyone around him, which couldn’t be further from what he has with Benton. The control is still there but he worries about losing it, and fantasises too, and whatever that means he doesn’t know but he knows it can't be love.

The only thing that’s true is that they’re two flawed people in a bruised and broken world, taking what they can get from each other. 

Neither of them stop to think that it might be as close to love as anything gets these days.

\-- -- -- -- --

There's a mass break-out and sabotage attempt from the scientists in block B, although the sabotage isn't much more than a last-ditch effort to take people with them when they realise they've got no chance. Half of them are shot before they get out of the building, including the two soldiers who'd left the lab door open and turned a blind eye to the stream of civilians going past them. The other half are dragged outside in handcuffs, informed of their punishment by the Brigade Leader, and then finished off in short order. It's all over before lunchtime.

Barely has Benton got into his room at the end of the day then the door opens again, an almost desperate look on Alistair's face as he kicks the door shut and locks it. His hands are rough, teeth and tongue and mouth demanding and insistent as he backs Benton towards the bed, where he fucks him hard and fast with both of them only half-undressed. Afterwards he pants against Benton's neck, while Benton rubs his back gently and pretends not to feel the wetness against his skin.

After that, Alistair takes to staying in Benton's bed more often than not, falling asleep with his back to the wall and laid out firmly on his side of the bed. Benton gets used to being awoken in the middle of the night when Alistair jerks awake from his nightmares with harsh breaths and shouts that echo around the room. Half-awake, he grips onto whatever part of Benton is closest, tight enough to bruise until the soft rubs of Benton's hands against his clammy skin chase away the remnants of bad dreams and worse memories.

“What happened to Yates?” Benton asks quietly one night, curled around him from behind while Alistair stares blankly into the gloom.

Alistair freezes, and then informs Benton coldly, “You'd better be damn careful saying that name around here.” There are names he hasn’t heard in years, and has no desire to be reminded of, and Yates’ is top of the list.

“You say it every night just before you wake up from your nightmares,” Benton tells him, dashing Alistair's hopes that he'll let the matter drop.

Sighing, Alistair gives in to the inevitable. “What do you know about him?”

“Only what everyone else knows,” Benton replies. “He was working for some political party and got caught giving them information about what goes on here. Spent a month in prison before his trial, was found guilty and shot.”

“That’s about the strength of it,” Alistair agrees, with a bitter resigned tone to his voice that says it’s far from the whole story. Benton waits, and after a moment Alistair asks, “Did anyone ever tell you exactly which group he was working for?”

The only real opponents that Benton knows of are the Democratic Rule, and the Independence Party that's lead by the current Leader's brother. Being involved with either of them is a distinctly bad idea.

“Wrong,” Alistair says when Benton hazards his guesses. “He was working for the Green Party. They couldn’t be a threat even if they got hold of the plans for every single project here. They don’t want to be in charge of the country, they just want to help slow our consumption of its resources. Yates was passing them information because he thought they’d do a better job of it than -”

His words cut off there. Not, Benton thinks, because he’s worried that anyone else will hear, but because there are words that are dangerous to say if you might start believing them yourself.

“Did he explain that at his trial?” Benton asks, although even as he says it he knows what the answer is.

A laugh entirely devoid of amusement escapes Alistair. “Benton, if you believe for one moment that anyone on the jury remotely cared about what he had to say for himself, you’re far more naive than I thought you were.”

Neither of them say anything for a while, until Benton murmurs, “We’re told that what we do is for the best.”

“And yet Yates was executed for trying to do just that,” Alistair finishes, words falling flat and resigned into the space between himself and the wall. Benton’s arms around his waist tighten, thumb rubbing carefully over Alistair’s hip in silent comfort.

In the dark, surrounded by the man who seems to want to look after him even though he’s not sure he’s worth it any more, Alistair wonders for the first time what Benton’s life would have been like if he hadn’t been exposed so early to the unforgiving way things are run here. If _Alistair_ hadn’t exposed him to it. If he didn’t have to hide his compassion beneath layers of toughness and efficiency, instead of only letting them out in the company of someone who forgot what kindness was far too long ago.

Minutes tick by, and Alistair tries to hold back the words which have haunted him for years, far too dangerous to be voiced but desperate to be spoken to someone who will understand.

“Yates isn’t dead.”

Benton stills along with Alistair, and although Alistair knows that Benton won’t say anything until he’s worked it all out, the wait until he speaks seems to stretch forever.

Then Benton’s thumb starts up its slow movements again, and Benton states, “You let him go.”

Alistair nods. He shouldn’t add more, but it’s been contained inside for far too long. “Sent some poor sod who was due to be executed the week after in his place. Unless he got caught on the way out, Yates is on a farm in Wales somewhere, doing Lord knows what with the communities out there.”

“You were together.”

“Not as slow as you look, are you?” Alistair regrets the words as soon as he’s said them, but Benton remains unperturbed by the harsh tone, and instead presses a kiss to the back of Alistair’s shoulder. “Off and on,” Alistair confirms.

Slowly, Benton says, “The nightmares aren’t because you had him shot.”

“They’re because I didn’t,” Alistair finishes curtly. “The one time I didn’t follow orders. I couldn’t - It wasn’t... right.” Only he’s not supposed to be concerned with right and wrong, hasn’t been for years, but Yates with his bright smile and dancing eyes, Yates and the optimistic determination that no-one else could afford, Yates who only wanted to put the world to rights... Yates had made him question it for the first time in years. Alistair has been trying to forget him and the questions he raised ever since.

“You did the right thing,” Benton murmurs.

Alistair’s tired limbs can’t maintain their rigidity any more, and he sags back into the warmth that emanates from Benton. If he did the right thing, it was the only time in his career. Yates never lost his idealism; now Alistair has taken Benton’s before it can take Benton from him. For all that he’s done his bit to stop the country from going to ruin, that’s not the same as making it better, and his chance to change things came and went when he didn’t add his voice to Yates’.

“Go to sleep,” Benton tells Alistair. Alistair does, and doesn’t think about the fact that he doesn’t know what he’ll do if after all this, he loses Benton as well.

\-- -- -- -- --

For days afterwards, Alistair is short with Benton, shouting at him like he hasn’t done in months and barely saying a word when they come together at the end of the day. It comes to a head one night when Benton's got his hands wrapped around the bars of the headboard, bracing himself against Alistair’s thrusts as they pant against each other. Alistair pauses where he's buried in Benton, and lowers his forehead to rest against Benton's in the dark as he asks with a ragged breath, “Why do you stay?”

Benton blinks and has to think before he answers. He's been assuming that Alistair was waiting for Benton to turn him in, but apparently that's now what's been bothering him at all.

“Because you couldn't come with me if I left.”

Frustrated, Alistair demands, “Why does that matter?”

“I can be good at my job anywhere, but even I can't keep an eye out for you if I'm not here.”

There are two things that Benton is good at, and one of them he cares about far more than the other. He lets his fingers unclench, and slowly brings his arms down to wrap around Alistair, who for once lets the transgression slide and instead lets Benton hold him close as they move together.

\-- -- -- -- --

As improbable as it sounds, a traveller from another dimension arrives, and everything comes to a catastrophic end.

Benton's last act is to put himself in the path of the creatures which are headed for Alistair, and the last thing he hears is the sound of his name being called out, which means he's succeeded.

Alistair realises that he can't stop the world from crashing into hell no matter what he does. Without Benton, there's not motivation to even try, and Alistair will stop at nothing to get to a world that's still got him in it.

It's the last futile hope he ever entertains.


End file.
